BE NICE OR LEAVE (Dr. Bob’s Studio)

It could not have been better! Lewis Schmidt stepped out of Facebook and set up a great open mic/workshop/party/ROCKPILE celebration at Dr. Bob’s Studio .

We were greeted by a bottle cap alligator, stenciled Americana, and a keg of Miller Lite generously donated by Dave Brinks/Goldmine Saloon. Bill Lavender and Guild guitar led a workshop in the blues. David M held forth on the virtues of firewater, “When I was a poet!”, and Terri turned the podium into a drum kit, setting the record straight with “The Day I Stopped Being Adorable”…did you know that dimples are really cellulite of the face? Family from Alabama, Pacifica and Guerneville, CA showed up.

Laura Mattingly sang about race and becoming. Gregory Corso joined us from the dead and spoke in Italian but nobody understood what he was saying. I heard my father talk about his best friend Chris Dundee, and heard Mohammad Ali say, “It’s okay momma”. A shortwave radio, a 78 rpm record player, 35 mm projector, a tiny ukulele, egg shaker, cabaret and circus music, gave credence to the idea that “all is fair in love and war” whether you be a man or a woman or both at the same time, and other pearls of wisdom.

Oh, Katrina still dumping her cyclonic tears on the gathering, but in that inimitable New Orleans resolve it was just water off the alligator’s back. The Mighty Mississippi keeps rolling and the levees still threaten to break. I hear a party gathering, around a hot jazz band in the Quarter. A Kahlua cake is cooling, gumbo bubbling…sometime soon we will feast on cajun plenty and be reborn in the name of the host.–MR

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